This patent application claims priority from a Japanese patent application No. H11-348122 filed on Dec. 7, 1999, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printer that prints a printing content onto a printing medium and a goods-wrapping apparatus including such a printer. In particular, the present invention relates to a goods-wrapping apparatus that wraps a particular article of a plurality, a printer included in the goods-wrapping apparatus, and a bag onto which the printer prints a predetermined printing content.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is a known goods-trading apparatus that selects a particular article of a plurality stored therein and carries the selected article out. As the goods-trading apparatus, for example, a canned juice vending machine, a confectionery vending machine, a newspaper vending machine, and a flower vending machine are put into practical use. Such a vending machine can store a plurality of articles and carry out one of the articles selected by a user. Moreover, the goods-trading apparatus allows the user to purchase a desired article even in the middle of the night, early morning, or holidays when shops are closed, because it can automatically carry out the article selected by the user in accordance with the user""s instruction.
In many cases, however, the article purchased via the conventional goods-trading apparatus mentioned above is covered only by a package of the article. Thus, the package may be stained while the user carries the purchased article.
On the other hand, there are known plural types of printers for printing a desired printing content onto a printing medium. However, such conventional printers can perform printing only onto a predetermined printing medium, that is, for example, a standard-sized sheet of paper. Thus, it is difficult for the conventional printer to perform the printing onto a given printing medium other than the predetermined printing medium.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a goods-trading apparatus with a printer that can solve the above-mentioned problems. This object is achieved by combinations described in the independent claims. The dependent claims define further advantageous and exemplary combinations of the present invention.
The inventor of the present invention came to appreciate that the known goods-trading apparatus had the following problems. First, the article that is carried out from the goods-trading apparatus is not wrapped with wrapping paper or the like. Thus, it is hard for the user to take the purchased article. Second, since the purchased article is not wrapped, it is difficult for the purchaser to be satisfied even if the article is the same as an article available from a shop.
In order to solve the aforementioned problems, the goods-trading apparatus of the present invention includes a means operable to pack the article selected by the user into a bag and carry it out. Moreover, the goods-trading apparatus of the present invention uses, as the bag for packing the article, a bag onto which a printing content related to the article to be packed is printed. Furthermore, the goods-trading apparatus of the present invention includes a printer operable to print the printing content onto the bag.
According to the first aspect of the present invention, a printing device for printing a printing content onto a bag having an opening and a closed portion opposite to the opening is provided. The printing device includes: a transport mechanism operable to transport the bag; and a printing head operable to print the printing content onto the bag that is being transported by the transport mechanism in such a manner that the closed portion goes at the head of the bag. The bag may be a paper bag or a fabric bag. In addition, the bag may be folded at the bottom thereof. The printing content may be a perceptible content, such as an image or a character.
The printing device may further include: a transport direction determination section operable to determine whether or not the bag is transported in such a manner that the closed portion goes at the head of the bag; and a warning section operable to warn, in a case where the bag cannot be transported in such a manner that the closed portion goes at the head of the bag, that the bag cannot be transported in such a manner that the closed portion goes at the head of the bag. For example, the warning section may produce a display device that presents a display image for warning that the bag is not to be transported in such a manner that the closed portion goes at the head of the bag. Also, the warning section may output, to a functional block of the printing device, a signal indicating that the closed portion does not go at the head of the bag. The transport direction determination section may detect a mark indicating a direction in which the bag is to be transported and determines whether or not the bag can be transported in such a manner that the closed portion goes at the head of the bag, the mark being provided on the bag. For example, the transport direction determination section may include a capturing device such as a CCD or a line sensor and detect the mark based on image data captured by the capturing device. In addition, the mark may be a bar, code while the transport direction determination section may be a bar code reader.
The printing device may further include: a bag size determination section operable to determine a size of the bag; and a print size adjustment section operable to adjust a size of the printing content to be such a size that the printing content is printed onto the bag, based on the size of the bag determined by the bag size determination section. For example, the bag size determination section may include a capturing device such as a CCD or a line sensor and detect the size of the bag based on the size of the bag captured by the capturing device. The bag size determination section may detect a mark indicating the size of the bag provided on the bag and detect the size of the bag based on the determination result. The mark provided on the bag may be a bar code including information regarding the size of the bag. Moreover, the printing device further includes: a plurality of printing heads having different printing characteristics; a material discriminator operable to discriminate a material for the bag; and a head selector operable to one of the printing heads in accordance with the material for the bag.
The material discriminator may detect a mark indicating the material for the bag provided on the bag and discriminate the material for the bag based on the detection result. The mark provided on the bag may be a bar code including information indicating the material for the bag and the material discriminator may detect the information of the material for the bag included in the bar code. In addition, the plurality of printing heads may be a printing head using ink for both paper and fabric.
The printing device further includes a condition adjustment section operable to change a position of the bag with respect to the direction in which the bag is transported so as to allow the bag to be transported in such a manner that the closed portion goes at the head of the bag, in a case where the bag cannot be transported in such a manner that the closed portion goes at the head of the bag. For example, the condition adjustment section may change a position of the bag to such a position that the closed portion of the bag goes at the head of the bag and a surface of the bag onto which the printing content is to be printed faces the printing head. More specifically, in a case where a handle of a paper bag is positioned at the head thereof, the condition adjustment section may rotate the paper bag by 180 degrees so as to make the closed portion of the paper bag positioned at the head of the paper bag. In addition, the mark provided on the bag may be a bar code while at least one of the transport direction determination section, the bag size determination section, and the material discriminator may be a bar code reader. Furthermore, the printing device further includes a bag storing section operable to store the bag, and the transport direction determination section detects whether or not the bag is stored in a direction in which the closed portion can go at the head of the bag and determines whether or not the bag can be transported in such a manner that the closed portion goes at the head of the bag based on the detection result.
According to the second aspect of the present invention, a printing device for printing a printing content onto a bag having an opening and a closed portion opposite to the opening is provided. The printing device includes: a printing head operable to print the printing content onto the bag; and a mark detector operable to make the printing head print the printing content onto the bag when the mark detector detects a mark indicating that the printing content is printable provided on the bag.
In an embodiment of the second aspect of the present invention, the printing device further includes: a printing position detector operable to detect a mark specifying a printable position at which the printing content is printable, the mark being provided on the bag; and a head moving section operable to move the printing head to an escape position at a position different from the printable position.
According to the third aspect of the present invention, a printing device for printing a printing content onto a printing medium is provided. The printing device includes: a thickness detector operable to detect a thickness of the printing medium; a printing head operable to print the printing content onto the printing medium; and a head moving section operable to move the printing head in accordance with the thickness of the printing medium detected by the thickness detector.
The head moving section may move the printing head to an escape position in a case where the thickness of the printing medium is thicker than a predetermined thickness. In addition, the printing device further includes: a transport roller section operable to transport the printing medium while putting the printing medium between a first roller and a second roller which is opposite to the first roller; and a roller-interval adjuster operable to adjust an interval between the first roller and the second roller in accordance with the thickness of the printing medium. Moreover, the printing device further includes a communication section operable to input the printing content via a network.
According to the fourth embodiment of the present invention, a bag onto which a printing content is printed by a printing device is provided. The bag includes a mark for the printing device that indicates that the printing content is printable. The bag may include a mark indicating a material for the bag. The mark may be a bar code. The bag may have a printing layer in accordance with a printing technology adopted to the printing device. As the printing layer, a printing layer for ink-jet printing, a thermal coloring layer, a photo-fixing thermal coloring layer, a printing layer for thermal ink transfer printing, and a printing layer for dye sublimation printing may be used.
According to the fifth embodiment of the present invention, a goods-wrapping apparatus for wrapping a particular article of a plurality of articles is provided. The goods-wrapping apparatus includes: a goods storing section operable to store the articles; a goods carrying in/out section operable to carry the articles into the goods storing section and carry the articles out from the goods storing section; a printer operable to print a printing content associated with the particular article onto a printing medium based on the particular article; and a wrapping section operable to wrap the particular article carried out from the goods carrying in/out section with the printing medium onto which the printing content associated with the particular article has been printed.
In an embodiment of the present invention, the printer includes: a goods database operable to store information related to the articles; a printing contents data base operable to store printing contents respectively associated with the articles; a printing content generator operable to select a printing content from the printing contents database and generate the printing content associated with the particular article to be printed on the printing medium, based on the particular article and the goods database; and a printing section operable to print the printing content associated with the particular article generated by the printing content generator onto the printing medium. In addition, the printing medium may be a bag. In this case, the wrapping section may include a packing mechanism operable to pack the particular article into the bag onto which the printing content associated with the particular article has been printed. The goods-wrapping apparatus may further include a communication section operable to receive/transmit information from/to an external device. In this case, the goods-wrapping apparatus is capable of receiving/transmitting at least one of the printing contents and information regarding the articles that are stored in the external device via the communication section.
This summary of the invention does not necessarily describe all necessary features so that the invention may also be a sub-combination of these described features.